October 23: Psalm 90

Psalm 90

A prayer of Moses the man of God.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn men back to dust, saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men." 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-- 6 though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.

7 We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. 9 All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. 10 The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. 11 Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. 12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

13 Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

16 May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. 17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-- yes, establish the work of our hands.

The way in…

“Don’t make me come down there.” Does anyone remember this billboard from a few years ago? It was a part of a series of ‘advertisements for God.’ Apparently, an anonymous businessman believed that God was suffering from poor publicity and what God really needed was a good marketing campaign. So, this man hired a marketing firm to come up with a series of slogans that would be posted on billboards across the country. The billboards had white words on a black background and said things like,

“That love your neighbor thing, I meant it.” - God.

“Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage.” - God.

“Keep using my name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer.” –God

But the one I remember and seemed to see most frequently was the one that read simply, “Don’t make me come down there.” - God

What does this phrase make us think about God? If you’re like me, I think of the times when I was a kid fighting with my sister while my Dad tried to watch television. When our fighting reached the point where he couldn’t hear Dan Rather, he’d ruffle his paper and shout, “You kids quiet down. Don’t make me come in there.” Or I think about the times when we were traveling to my grandparents and we’d be whining or fighting in the backseat until we irritated my Dad enough to where he’d say something like, “You kids don’t make me pull this car over.”

No doubt you have similar phrases you could share that came from your own parents. They certainly describe our parents. But here’s the question. Do they describe God? Is God really like a Dad watching Nightline whose best attempt to ‘fix things’ is to threaten his kids with his presence? Some, such as our psalmist this morning, would say yes.

Psalm 90

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” The Psalmist starts with an affirmation of God’s provision and protection that has passed through recordable ancestry. But it doesn’t stop there, it goes all the way back ‘before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth and the world…’ The Psalmist affirms that God is God before and after time, ‘from everlasting to everlasting.’

Next, the psalmist moves to describe the human condition in comparison to God’s everlasting. To do so, she uses three simile’s; dust, a day and grass.

“You return men back to dust,’ she writes. We are like dust. This brings to mind the creation of humanity, ‘from dust you were formed and to dust you shall return.’ It also brings to mind Ecclesiastes, ‘vanity, vanity [dust, dust] all is vanity. It even brings to mind Psalm 1, ‘not so the wicked, they are like chaff (or dust) blown about by the wind…’ Humanity is dust. Humanity is also like a single day.

“For a thousand days in your sight are like a day that has gone by.” Our days are like sand in an hourglass, thousands to us, but just days to you. Humanity’s existence is but a moment in God’s history.

And finally, the psalmist writes, we are ‘…like the new grass of the morning, though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.”

We are like dust, a day and grass. How do such comparisons make you feel? Insignificant, small, forgotten? It appears the Psalmist felt so. What are we to do with these feelings? As we read further in the Psalm, we hear the Psalmist attempt to explain these feelings, this pain.

The wrath of God

“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.” And what would lead to such anger? “You have set our sins before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” “All of our days (which are just a blink to you God) pass away under your wrath.” Tough 70 to 80 years seems a lot to us, it is just a blink to you and that blink is all under your wrath, all just trouble and sorrow. “Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the power due you.”

In short, God is mad! We have done something wrong. Actually, we have done many things wrong and now the Psalmist seems to be saying, God is giving us our due. Have you ever felt this way? Have things ever just gone so bad for you that in searching for a reason you landed upon the conclusion similar to the psalmist that God must be punishing me?

What are we to do with this wrath?

What are we to do with this wrath? How shall we respond? The first and simplest option is of course to ignore it. But, if it is true that God is really mad, then this might lead to some painful consequences.

So, the second equally simple, but also troublesome option is to embrace it as justified. The Psalmist does this in part indicating that God’s wrath is as great as the fear that is due him. Then requesting that God would teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom.

There is much wisdom in this verse and perhaps worthy of its own sermon. We would do well to live life in light of our mortality. Personally, I know that one of the greatest gifts I’ve been given as a pastor is the privilege of sitting with families as they say goodbye to a loved one. I say that this is a gift because in so doing, I am reminded that our days are numbered and that none of us get out of this world alive. We all, like the psalmist said, are like grass. We do return to dust. Paradoxically, facing death on a regular basis often leads me to embrace life. Very often I return from funerals to hug my wife and pay attention to my kids because I have just been reminded that these are gifts that don’t last forever. The reality of death can teach us the wisdom of embracing life. Such is a powerful lesson of the psalmist.

And yet, this does not get us off the hook, for death is a very different thing from wrath. And the Psalmist is addressing God’s anger. And so far, he seems to indicate that it is all justified. Perhaps, but the next part of the Psalm indicates otherwise. In the next verse, the Psalmist reveals that she is not so sold on this accepting a God of wrath, trouble and sorrow. No, she shouts out.

Bold prayer for something more

Ever get mad at God? Good. Because it is possible that the god you are mad at is very likely a god that the risen Lord wants us to be mad at. I remember hearing Dallas Willard who wrote The Divine Conspiracy tell of an encounter. He was talking with a person at a party and when the person learned that Dallas was not just a professor of philosophy but also a Christian he said, “I don’t believe in God.” Dallas said he paused so that he might not just react in some form of anger or frustration and then replied, “Thank you.” And then he asked, “would you mind telling me about the god you don’t believe in, because I might not believe in him either.” Such I think may be the case with the Psalmist. She has lived long with a God of rage and now he has reached his limit. Listen to the Psalmist’s rage.

“Relent, O LORD!” The Hebrew word for ‘relent’ is bWv (shuve) which is elsewhere translated as ‘repent.’ Moses asks God to do this upon Mt. Sinai (Exodus 32:12). And you know what? God does it. Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning (not just with being grass) but with your steadfast love (hesed, which is covenantal everlasting love). Why? So that we can do what you created us to do “sing for joy and be glad all our days.”

This was the prayer of the Psalmist. Relent, O Lord. Show us your love, your kindness, your steadfast love that has been there since the creation of the world. Show us this love for which we long. This was the prayer of the Psalmist. And so I wonder, was it ever answered?

Romans 3. Wrath revealed as ours, not Gods.

Fast forward a few hundred years to a little man hunched over a desk. His hand clasps a quill dipped in ink which he touches to a piece of parchment. He is writing a letter to a group of Christians in the world capitol of Rome. He has already filled a large section of the paper with words that described the God which the Psalmist prayed would relent, a god of wrath. And as we watch, he pauses, touches the quill to the ink and writes with a smile the words. Nuni de, “But now…” All of that seemed to be the case before, but now.

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” Is it possible that the thing the Psalmist prayed for was given? Paul tells us that a righteousness from God, which previously was thought to only come through the law (or some might say through God’s threats of punishment and wrath) has been made known. Do you mean there is a way other than wrath? Yes, Paul says. Wanna hear about it?

Well, ‘This righteousness from God comes through faith of Jesus Christ to all who believe.’ A word about Greek grammer. Most Bibles will translate the phrase, “faith of Christ’ as ‘faith in Christ.’ This is a fair translation as it is in the genitive case and therefore can go either way. However, in this case, it makes far more sense to translate it as the ‘faith of Christ’ because the very next phrase talks about our faith, our belief. Meaning it makes more sense to point to ‘the faith of Jesus Christ.’ So, what does this mean? It means as NT Wright wrote that “Jesus offered to God the faithfulness that Israel had denied.” Jesus was faithful in all and every way. Which, as we know but often forget, can not be said of us. We are not always faithful. Paul reminds us and the Romans when he writes, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

All have sinned, God’s right to be angry

Wait a second, you might be thinking, I thought you were just saying that you didn’t think that God was really angry? Now I hear you telling us that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s expectations, God’s glory? What’s the deal? Yes, I did say that I didn’t think God was angry, what I didn’t say was that he didn’t have the right to be.

Think about it this way. If what the Psalmist writes is true, if God has been our dwelling place and God brought forth the earth and the world then this means that all of us and all of this belong to God. It means that it not only belongs to God, but God created it and if you have ever created something, a painting, pottery, an essay, a garden, architectural plans or a floral arrangement then you know that some of you is in that creation. And what happens when someone harms or even worse destroys what you create? Not sure? I can tell you what happens at my house. When Will has spent 30 minutes using the Legos to build a house with a corral for the horses and a space ship to fly them around and Benjamahem comes and kicks all of it over, what do you think happens? There is shouting, there is screaming and sometimes there is even pushing. Why? Because Benjamin has destroyed something that Will created, and because Will created it, he is wounding some of Will. If such is the case with a few legos that are here today and gone tomorrow, how do you think God feels?

When we pollute the streams, how does God feel? When we curse, cut, stab and shoot one another with weapons or with words, how does god feel? When we abuse, batter and degrade ourselves, we who were created in God’s image, how does that make God feel? When you think of it that way, it makes perfect sense to think as the Psalmist did, that God was pissed and we’re getting punished for it. That, I am sure is what I most often do. But here’s the thing, as it turns out, it isn’t how God responds. How do you know this Ken?

God’s response

As it turns out, God had his own marketing campaign that didn’t involve billboards. Once again, we return to Paul who continued his writings by telling us how God responded to our harming his creation. “God presented him (you might even say, himself) as a sacrifice (an offering)...” Why did God do this? He did this to demonstrate his justice (righteousness) because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished (the actual word here is passed over.) How did God respond to all of the ways we wounded his creation? Did he respond with rage, with anger, with wrath? No, instead of retaliating, as we would, God responded with himself. Don’t miss what I’m saying. God had every right to come and ‘get us back’ for all we’d done to destroy his creation. And yet, God does not. The God who created the heavens and the earth, the streams and the trees instead of using them to punish us, allowed us to use them to punish him. What are we to do with this?

Very simply, we can stop treating others as they treat us. We can stop responded to shouting with more shouting, anger with anger, gossip with gossip and hurt with hurt. Instead, we can respond to shouts with whispers, to anger with kindness, to gossip with blessing and hurt with forgiveness. This is the way God revealed on the cross. This is the way of Jesus.

The way out…

As it turns out, perhaps that billboard was true in a different way then we first heard it. Perhaps the reason God might say, “Don’t make me come down there,” is not because he’s coming to punish us, rather because he knew that we would punish him.”

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me.” (Mat. 23:37) Such were the words of Jesus after entering Jerusalem before he was crucified. Turns out we had it wrong all along, God never wanted to punish us. Rather, God wanted to love us, but we would not let him.

How bout this morning? Will you keep running around like a little chick? Afraid, hungry, oblivious to God’s presence. Or, like a child who knows their parent loves them, will you allow yourself to be gathered in and embraced by the God who loves you.